The Geek Gazette (GAZ) is a community newsletter system for vBulletin 3.6.x and up. GAZ goes far beyond conventional newsletter systems by introducing a modular layout that enables you to quickly customize your newsletters how you see fit.

Need multiple types of newsletters? With GAZ, you can! Create any number of newsletters, each with their own custom layout and settings.

Can't be asked to sit around generating mailouts at just the right time? With GAZ, you can skip even thinking about generating newsletters and sending them out. With GAZ's unique system, you can configure your newsletters to be created at any given point on a regular basis (i.e. once a day, or week, month, or next Easter).

Went off to the pub and forgot to send out the newsletter?!? Not a problem with GAZ. GAZ can automatically send off generated emails in batches. In other words, you can set GAZ up and let it do the newsletter work for you!

Ever wanted to browse previous issues or give the ability for users to email past issues to their moms and dads? With GAZ you can. That's right, GAZ comes with an issue browser that lets users spend hours of fun reading past issues of your newsletters.

Most common email readers will prevent downloading external images and style heets until the user requests these items. This means that HTML emails look pretty freaking ugly in most email readers until you choose to 'download all images/content/whatever'. To add insult to injury, many popular email readers such as Gmail and Hotmail actually strip out the entire contents of your HTML email header. Since this area usually contains the style information, that means most (if not all) of your CSS will get eaten alive in these readers, not to mention that some email readers will replace style attributes with 'Cleaned' attributes.

To counter this, GAZ gives you the option to put a lot of your common CSS classes definitions in line. This can bulk up the size of the email a little, but the trade off is a much nicer looking email (for those email readers that do not clean out inline style attributes) even if the user doesn't download images.

To access the inline definitions, go to the inline style information (AdminCP -> GAZ -> Inline Style Info). There you can enter inline style information, or extract it from your existing CSS (you can extract all of your style CSS details by using the AdminCP -> GAZ -> Tools -> Rebuild in line style info link).

Note that any external images will get stripped out of Gmail and Hotmail, so you shouldn't really bother putting those in (the extraction tool doesn't). Remember too that some email readers are set to replace style attributes with 'Cleaned' attributes.

Send yourself an email using the online demo to see what your email reader does, and remember that the type of email you receive (plain text or HTML) can be set here in the 'Geek Gazette Format' drop down menu.

Installation

Please see http://www.thevbgeek.com/geeki/index.php/Category:GAZ for further details. There you will find installation instructions, upgrade instructions, plus other useful information for your viewing pleasure. Question mark icons appear in the GAZ ACP settings for more help.

__________________Please use the forums for support, feature requests, and similar such things. Support does not include custom code, custom template edits, or third-party modifications. PMs and emails to me should be for private information only, such as login information. If you PM or email me a support question, chances are good that I'll ignore it. Thanks. While the work or play is on, it is a lot of fun if while you are doing one you don't constantly feel that you ought to be doing the other. -- Franklin Pierce Adams

Congrats on the release. Is there an email address I can send you a copy of my last newsletter or two (generated in another system) to see if something like what my users are familiar with can be generated in GAZ? I'm a little concerned that I will need to create custom modules and I don't see a lot of info on how to do that, hence asking for some guidance and your thoughts around if what I want to do can be done in GAZ, if so, then I'm happy to buy.

Text Block: This module will allow you to display static text including html and bbcode (example in right hand column here)

Info Block: This module will display text you type in or show the text entered in the issue message (example is top welcome row here)

Statistics Block: This module will display site statistics (example in right hand column here)

Thread Block: This module will allow you to configure a list of threads to display (the five other blocks here are from the thread block)

You can place blocks in the following positions for HTML (center is the only position for Plain Text):

Top

Left

Center

Right

Bottom

You can use each module more than one time, but if your newsletter has any other information that cannot be displayed by using one of the default modules, a custom module would need to be coded. If you want me to look at your newsletter, please PM or email a link.

__________________Please use the forums for support, feature requests, and similar such things. Support does not include custom code, custom template edits, or third-party modifications. PMs and emails to me should be for private information only, such as login information. If you PM or email me a support question, chances are good that I'll ignore it. Thanks. While the work or play is on, it is a lot of fun if while you are doing one you don't constantly feel that you ought to be doing the other. -- Franklin Pierce Adams

Yes, this is an update to knock out bugs in the previous version. Some people were have problems with the previous version: permissions didn't work, newsletters/issues/titles displayed didn't match, certain date formating was fixed, etcetera.

__________________Please use the forums for support, feature requests, and similar such things. Support does not include custom code, custom template edits, or third-party modifications. PMs and emails to me should be for private information only, such as login information. If you PM or email me a support question, chances are good that I'll ignore it. Thanks. While the work or play is on, it is a lot of fun if while you are doing one you don't constantly feel that you ought to be doing the other. -- Franklin Pierce Adams

Cannot give you a definitive answer on that one, haven't tested with vB 3.5, but maybe someone else who is using GAZ with vB 3.5 will come along and offer their experience.

__________________Please use the forums for support, feature requests, and similar such things. Support does not include custom code, custom template edits, or third-party modifications. PMs and emails to me should be for private information only, such as login information. If you PM or email me a support question, chances are good that I'll ignore it. Thanks. While the work or play is on, it is a lot of fun if while you are doing one you don't constantly feel that you ought to be doing the other. -- Franklin Pierce Adams